Whisper In My Ear
by Stamina Overlook
Summary: With the death of her father, Christine loses her strength, her passion for music and her will to live... Until she hears an angelic voice through her headphones that begins to guide her through her life, helping her and watching after her.
1. Chapter 1

**Whisper In My Ear, Chapter 1.**

Paris.

A flourishing metropolis, blooming on the surface of the planet like an enormous rafflesia flower. It is fascinating, ravishing, but it emits a thick scent that alludes to parasitization, to cruel evisceration of the lands around it and the soils beneath it and of people who live in it and of which this modern Babylon consists.

It is an incredibly complex structure, that is stable but so imperfect that it can collapse at any moment, given a push in the right place at the right time, created and cultivated to its nowadays glory by an omnipresent civilization.

It is a place of unparalleled beauty, of rich, ancient history and of horrors that lurk in the shadows of looming skyscrapers and dilapidated intricate architecture of the royal era.

Paris thrives on its horrors. It cannot exist without them, just like good cannot exist without evil, just like light cannot exist without darkness. It is all about contrast, stark and drastic, and this contrast is seen everywhere: policemen arresting criminals, journalists calling out corrupt government members, historians uncovering old, dark secrets of the town, normal people reporting unusual behaviour next door. This contrast is relished, it is presented on a golden pedestal like a prized jewel, it is worshipped, it is loved, this difference between white and black that is akin to the eternal battle between life and death. Inequality is what ensures stability and safety in this society; thus, equality, when the colours shift and intermingle, turning everything into a shade of gray, is a synonym for destruction, a signal for the chaos to begin its reign.

For now, however, the peace and tranquility are preserved; the system keeps working, and its elements, the little people, still live their little lives and stick to their usual routines. And among all the chaos and peace, the present and the past collide in the Palais Garnier, the most marvelous of Opera Houses, which had seen the most sublime of dances and heard the most ethereal of voices within its walls and which represents the majestic beauty of the human mind. The building is beautiful in the intricacy of its floral ornaments and the intimacy of its foyers. The enhanced atmosphere conversates with a human soul, making it soak it up, taking away all the worry, leaving only awe in its wake.

* * *

It is September now, and the Opera Populaire stands tall and steady in the wake of an evening storm that is beginning to overtake the whole Paris. In its dressing rooms and backstage corridors, ballerinas, singers and stagehands run back and forth in a desperate rush of preparation for the last performance of the day.

That night, la Carlotta, the famous star of Paris, takes the stage once more and astonishes her public again with the unparalleled force of her voice and her fierce, unfaltering vibrato.

After the last curtain call, a lone singer rushed through the horde of opera workers. She was shoved from side to side as she tried to move against the unforgiving torrent of people, trying to squeeze through the mindless corpses of her colleagues and patrons that hastened to congratulate the performers with a successful closing night.

Christine Daaé didn't feel like she belonged there.

The last push - and finally, _finally_, she was on the bustling street, inhaling fresh, chill air, smelling traffic fumes and wet asphalt. Wasting a few moments only to regain her breath, she turned around and began walking alongside the Opera building's outer wall.

A few steps, and she felt hot tears burn her cheeks. She hastily moved her hand to wipe them, but they kept running, and, at last, she gave up any pretense of being fine. She would never be good enough to be a lead singer. It was a miracle that she had been able to secure herself a place in the chorus. She was crying openly, sucking in air through gritted teeth. She felt passersby's concerned gazes on her, and hastened her step.

On the go, she fumbled through her belongings in her bag, searching for her wireless headphones. Music always calmed her down. It was her only true friend in this world. It would never give her up.

She let out a breath when her fingertips brushed the familiar smooth surface, and her fingers immediately wrapped around the band and fished the headphones out. She hurriedly put them on and reached for her phone to turn on Bluetooth and shuffle through her playlist while she walked to the nearest subway station.

She could care less about the world around her, the neverending traffic and the torrents of people. She would go with the flow and rely on it to lead her to where she was supposed to be.

She mechanically paid for the subway pass, went down the escalator and sat on a train. There were so many people that she was pushed from all sides and couldn't see the exits - so she lifted her headphones sometimes to listen to the stations announcements, and she frequently looked behind her to see if anyone reached for her bag.

She felt paranoid in such large crowds.

A twenty-minute ride, and she exited the subway on the _Courcelles_ station, promptly crossed the street and headed for the modern-looking building with the shining words _"Clinique Internationale du Parc Monceau" _etched into the signboard.

"I am a visitor," she murmured to the tired receptionist, and the woman gave her the pass and waved her hand to the elevators that would get her to the maze of familiar corridors. The walls remained the same, even though the people were different each time she visited this place; Christine clutched at her shirtfront in a feeble attempt to lessen the pain in her chest.

She hated it. She hated how she needed to look up at the signs to find the directions to the therapy wing, even though she must have remembered the way by now, how she needed to anxiously look around the sterile premises in search for the ward with the necessary number, and how her heart thumped faster and fasted against her ribcage in frightful anticipation of what was awaiting her in the end of this emotionally taxing journey.

The plastic white door creaked open, and there he was, on one of the few beds in that chamber, her father, pale and dreadfully thin; his once round jaw was sharp, his once full cheeks hollow, and his once lively, sparkling eyes set deep in their sockets, closed in blissful sleep. His arm was outstretched, with the catheter inserted into one of his protruding veins.

She didn't bring the flowers today; after all, she had been there yesterday, too, and the day before that, and the day before that, and brought fresh blooms each time the old ones withered away under the merciless onslaught of the revolting stench of disease.

And now the fresh chamomiles she had brought two days before were winking at her from their place in a small vase.

She cupped his face, feeling the bristle on his concave cheeks; she kissed his forehead that was streaked with wrinkles; she smiled for the first time during that day and whispered, "I am here, Pappa. Your Little Lotte is here."

His eyes slowly opened; it took a few seconds for them to focus on her face, and she felt tears burn the back of her throat.

"Christine…" mumbled he, a weak smile tugging on his withered lips. His bony, freckled hand twitched in her direction, and she took it in her warm, soft palms, passing her thumb over the calloused fingers.

"Jag är här, Pappa," she murmured in their native tongue, tears blurring her vision._ I am here,_ _Pappa._

"Du bör inte att komma hit varje dag," her father whispered.

_You shouldn't be coming here every day._

_You have a life, Christine. You must live and be happy. Don't worry about your father so much._ She's heard it all, countless times again and again, from the lips of her dying father.

His death was imminent, that much was obvious. Even if they had somehow acquired enough money to be able to secure an immediate operation, he couldn't have been saved.

Cancer is a diagnosis that for most people of their station results in death.

"Jag vet, Pappa. Jag vill se dig oftare. Jag vill vara med dig medan vi fortfarande har tid..."

_I know, Pappa. I want to see you more often. I want to be with you while we still have time._

The elder Daaé smiled and closed his eyes.

Christine clasped his hand closer. "Har du smärta?"

His bleak eyes opened and looked through her. _Are you in pain?_

"Nej, nej," he told her. "Läkarna gjorde säker på."

_No, no. The doctors made sure of that. _

"Låt oss lyssna på musik, min Lilla Lotte," he offered after a minute of silence.

Christine wiped at her cheek. _Let us listen to music, my Little Lotte._

"Läkarna säger du behöver vila..." she whispered. _The doctors say you need rest._

"Vila bli fördömd," he grumbled. "Jag vill lyssna på musik. Vänligen, Christine..."

_Rest be damned. I want to listen to music. Please, Christine._

She sighed and fished her headphones and her phone out of her bag. "Vilken?" she asked as she put the headphones on his head and adjusted them — there were other people in this ward, sleeping. The nurse would kill her if she found out.

_Which one?_

"Andra konserten... av Tjajkovskij." The great violinist smiled and closed his eyes.

Christine wiped the tears from her eyes and clicked on the necessary entry. _The second concerto… by Tchaikovsky._ His favourite.

His face looked almost younger when he listened to music - so relaxed, with an expression of bliss on his features. If only music could heal! He would have been the healthiest man in the universe…

She waited patiently, watching him with a teary smile; she waited all thirteen minutes the concerto was playing and stayed silent after it ended. Only then she carefully extended her hands towards him and took the headphones off his head.

"Mere?" she asked with a smile. More?

And she sat there with her father, listening to music and talking, for hours and hours on end as the time ticked by unnoticed, forgotten.

Taking the headphones off his head yet another time, she placed a kiss on his forehead.

He didn't react.

For a moment her heart sank in a dreadful thought that he has...

But the fate was merciful... for now. His breath was calm and even, and a small smile played on his lips.

He was fast asleep.

She leaned away from him and felt her breath hitch. She must go now.

She quietly put her belongings back into her bag, stood up and left the chamber with a quick nod to the nurse that was wrapping up her roundabout of the wing to serve the medicines.

* * *

Mamma Valerius greeted Christine in the doorway upon her return home. The elderly woman enveloped her in a warm, soft hug, a hug that smelled of apples and cinnamon and _home_.

"My child, were you visiting your father again?" she asked as she rushed Christine into the small apartment. "I was waiting for you. Let me heat up the food."

Christine shrugged off her smudged coat and hung it onto a rack by her red scarf. "I'm sorry, Mamma," she apologized sheepishly.

But Mamma Valerius had already disappeared into the kitchen.

With a sigh Christine trailed to her small room. She'd forgotten it was the anniversary of the Professor's death. She'd forgotten that Mamma had been waiting for her to go to visit the Professor's grave together.

She felt guilty.

* * *

Neither of the women could look each other in the eye, sitting at the table in the small, cramped kitchen. Christine picked at her food, trying to find the courage to say something. Anything.

"Mamma, I'm- I'm sorry-" she began, but the elderly woman interrupted her with a wave of her wrinkled hand.

"No need to apologize, Christine. Indeed, the living are more important than the dead. You should visit your father as much as possible while you two still have time."

Christine winced.

Mamma Valerius was looking at the kitchen wall to her side. "...I've visited the cemetery without you. You shouldn't worry, child."

Christine looked down at her supper, unable to hold the tears anymore.

Mamma's eyes widened behind her thick reading glasses as Christine dropped her fork and hid her face in her palms, shedding bitter tears of sorrow.

The elderly woman rushed to her protegée to try and calm her, but Christine merely shook her head and wept harder.

The pain she felt was almost physical.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2.**

The days melted into a haze, one straight, monotonous gray line. The bittersweet moments she shared with her withering father, the jabs and jokes she endured at her job, the pitiful look in Mamma's eyes when she returned home, — everything in Christine's life made her feel sick, and sometimes she felt like throwing up. Sometimes she did.

There was no denying that something was wrong with her. The other people certainly had their share of dying loved ones as well; why couldn't she deal with it as them? No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't climb out of this never-ending cycle of sorrow, this wormhole that sucked her inside, deeper and deeper into the abyss.

When he finally died, she went mad.

The dreaded call happened on a gloomy afternoon, and Mamma was cooking dinner when Christine picked up the phone.

The words of the nurse were lost to her, as the world faded away, and she collapsed onto the floor, phone falling out of her hands. Mamma rushed to her side and fussed over her, checking her head for injuries and scrambling to find some ammonia.

When she came back to the world of the living, the smell of burnt food greeted her, and the worried and tearful face of her guardian told her that she hadn't dreamt it.

Her father was dead.

She refused to get up from her bed and go out of the house; Mamma called the Academy for her and got her an indefinite bereavement leave. She also meticulously brought breakfast, dinner and supper into her room, only to take it back mostly untouched.

Christine seemed to be in a perpetual state of shock, hurtful denial and pain that took over her mind and made her unable to produce even the simplest of sentences, except for-

"He's dead." He was dead.

"I know. I'm so sorry, my dear," replied Mamma sadly and took away a bowl of untouched soup.

She was going to miss her father's funeral this way if her guardian didn't manage to tug her out of bed by force. The empty shell that was now Christine was dressed in black clothes and taken to the graveyard, where she observed the small procedure.

As the cheap coffin was lowered into the ground, an overwhelming sense of finality struck Christine like a lightning bolt. There was no sense in denying it any longer - he was there, he was dead and he wasn't coming back.

She fell to her knees, screaming her lungs out, crying ugly tears of sorrow. The few people who were attending the funeral looked at her with pity and compassion.

She wouldn't calm down. She couldn't stand up - her legs betrayed her. Her mind was quickly shutting down, and there was nothing she could do.

She didn't remember anything about getting into the car and coming back home. She hardly remembered the next few days as well.

* * *

Eventually, she became numb. She no longer had mental breakdowns, she no longer had uncontrollable crying fits - outside it looked like Christine Daaé was getting better. But she wasn't. She simply became numb.

When Mamma gently brought up the fact that her pension wasn't high enough to subsist two grown women, Christine immediately understood that she had to go back to work.

She couldn't stand the thought of it, but the empty wallet and piling bills showed no mercy. Her father's funeral had drained their budget harder than they had expected, and the flourishing inflation would only make everything much more expensive in the future.

She returned to work on Monday.

Any hope that she would be ready for it was dashed as soon as she stepped into the foyer, where a member of _corpse de ballet,_ an adorable little girl Cecile Jammes with lily-white skin and forget-me-not eyes, whom everybody called simply Jammes, jumped at her and hugged her tightly.

"Christine, you're back!" She exclaimed. "I'm so sorry! We're here for you, if you need us!"

The last thing Christine needed was this treatment. She wanted no reminders, she wanted to be treated like a normal person who had everything under control, not like some deranged girl who resembled a walking dead because of her grief.

She gently pushed the young ballerina away with a grim expression. "I'm okay, Jammes."

The ballet rat looked up at her, mouth open in surprise. Slowly, she pursed her lips, worry etched into her features, and took a step away, finally giving Christine the much needed personal space.

Christine put her hands in the pockets of her jeans. "Where's Monsieur Gabriel? I have to talk to him."

"Oh," Jammes exclaimed, "the last time I saw him he was on the stage, giving out orders. You should hurry; they say the choir begins their rehearsal soon."

"Mmm, okay. Thank you, Jammes. I'll talk to you later." Christine turned around, waving Jammes goodbye. The girl awkwardly waved in return with an uneasy smile on her soft features.

The young singer travelled to the enormous auditorium, paying no attention to the familiar surroundings. Instead, her eyes were glued to the gathering crowd on the stage, and to the figure standing in front of the orchestra pit near the conductor.

Monsieur Gabriel turned around when she approached and shyly addressed them. The chorus master was a thin, tall man in his sixties, with grizzled whiskers and hair. He seemed to be startled to see Christine. "Mademoiselle Daaé! What a surprise. Ah, we didn't expect you…"

He cleared his throat, feeling the inquiring gaze of the conductor on him. "Let me offer my deepest condolences. I personally knew Monsieur Daaé - truly, he was a brilliant violinist."

Christine winced and shuffled in her place. "Yes. Yes, he was."

Monsieur Gabriel looked away. "Ah, right. So, I take it, your bereavement leave is over?"

She slowly nodded, hugging her bag to herself.

The chorus master smiled. "I see. Well, what can I say? You will have to work hard to catch up. Don't worry, though. I am sure you'll do great." He turned back to his stand and motioned to the stage. "Please, take your place in the back rows on the left. One of the members can share their sheet music with you until you get your own copy."

And thus a long, horrible day has started.

A kind chorus girl in the back row, Rosalie, shared her score with Christine as the singer familiarised herself with the music.

"Our section is singing this part," told Rosalie Christine in a hushed tone while Monsieur Gabriel loudly berated the section on the right.

For a while she simply listened to the choir, trying to remember the melody. When she was sure she would hit the next few bars, she opened her mouth and took a deep breath, feeling her lungs expand in a familiar way, and-

Her voice sounded awful to her ears. Weak, squeaky, out of tune… Rosalie side-eyed her, and Christine closed her mouth with a deep feeling of shame overwhelming her.

She just stood there, clenching her fists at her sides, waiting for the song to end.

When the music was finally over, Christine's hand reached up to cup her throat. Rosalie leaned in to her, showing her the score once again.

"You simply haven't warmed your voice up properly. It's okay, we've all been there - you can do your warm-ups during the break."

Christine was staring into the distance, her fingers clutching at her neck.

* * *

The rest of the rehearsal proved to be just as disastrous. Christine couldn't sing a note right; in the end, she merely opened her mouth and kept silent, to not disturb the overall sound of her section.

When the break was at last announced, she was the first one to dart behind the stage in search for privacy. The emotions that she managed to keep inside while in public were quickly getting out of control.

She raced up the stairs, trying not to make too much noise, and entered the empty, dusty corridor that lined up the dressing rooms for performers. There were fancier dressing rooms, the ones that belonged to such stars like Sorelli and la Carlotta; Christine ran past them, towards the smaller ones that sometimes belonged to several performers at once.

There was an old dressing room in the end of that corridor that nobody owned. For some reason, the management was reluctant to give it away; the superstitious theatre folk gossipped that the room was haunted. Christine, personally, cared not for silly superstitions.

She stopped right in front of the door and grabbed the handle - it gave way, just as she expected it to. The locks on the doors that were this old were brittle; sometimes, they didn't work at all. She had no habit of visiting this room often; she simply knew of its existence, and right now she needed a place where nobody would disturb her.

She entered the room, closed the door behind her and turned on the light.

A dim incandescent bulb in a frail lampshade lit up the small, cramped space. The room smelled of dust and paint - a stronger variant of the familiar smell that permeated the entire theatre. There was an old carpet beneath her feet, a wardrobe, a small vanity and a big mirror that took up an entire wall.

Releasing a sniff, she adjusted her glasses and stepped forward. She carefully moved the vanity chair from its place and sat in it, trying to regain her breath.

She had to sing. _She had to sing._ This was her job, the only thing she was good at. The only thing she was good for.

She was terrified of what could happen if she couldn't sing.

She took out her phone. The reception was bad this deep inside the building, far away from the public wi-fi. All hopes of finding the necessary score online right now were dashed. She would have to wait until she got out of here.

With an irritated grunt, she pushed the phone back into her bag and stood up. She had to sing. But what?

Taking a deep breath, she launched into a very simple, familiar song in her native tongue. The melody was almost elementary - she thought that here she wouldn't mess up. She used this song as a warm-up sometimes.

Her voice was strained and out of tune; surely, the result of neglecting it for weeks. She moved onto the next stanza, about to gain volume. Her voice creeped up the notes as it grew louder and louder-

And then it broke. Her voice broke right in the middle of the refrain, in the most horrible manner possible.

She fell back into the chair with a wail, pain gripping her insides.

Why, why did God keep punishing her so much? What did she do to deserve this?

Her eyes felt sore, and she rubbed at them, lifting her eyeglasses up to her forehead.

While she was deep inside of her mind, battling her inner demons, she heard a small voice call for her from the outside. "Child, why are you crying so?"

"I'm- I'm not…" She took the hand away from her eyes, and felt the cold air hit the wet skin. Her body was being wracked by sobs. She felt weirdly detached.

"I will never be a good singer," she stammered, looking at her hand. The lines of it were blurry in her severe myopia. "My father died, and my voice went with him."

The small voice hummed gently. "A loss of a loved one is always devastating," it said. "The pain will never truly go away. You can only learn to live with it."

Christine closed her eyes and put her palms over them again. "I just want it to go away. I can't live like this… I can't…"

She sniffed, her breath hitching, and reached for her bag to search for tissues.

She opened a fresh pack, dabbed her eyes and blew her nose.

She stood up again and looked around.

There was nobody nearby. No sound was coming from outside the room, either.

Strange. She was sure that somebody was talking to her just now. In such a gentle, sweet voice…

She was starting to hallucinate, she told herself, as she collected her bearings and checked the time. The break was already over? The time was ruthless.

Throwing a last glance in the vanity mirror to make sure that her eyes or nose didn't look red, she opened the door and turned off the old lights.

* * *

The rest of the rehearsal didn't go as bad for her, thankfully. Evidently, her voice simply needed to warm up; in an hour, she actually started hitting the notes correctly, and that gave her some confidence to up the volume. She was still singing quietly - she didn't want to draw attention to herself. Still, she threw herself into the music as the company went through the first act of Meyerbeer's _Les Huguenots._

After the chorus master was done with them, the singers scattered throughout the building. There was a break for the ballet as well, and the chorus members mingled with the dancers. On her way out Christine stumbled into Jammes, who was standing near the doorway, chattering with a thin, swarthy, black-haired girl in a white tutu.

"Who cares what your mom says? If ballet isn't your thing, you shouldn't be pushing it. It'll only get worse for you!"

"Cecile, you don't understand," the girl babbled. "Ballet is all I have, even if I'm bad at it. If I quit, I have nowhere to go."

Christine stepped over and timidly glanced between the two dancers.

Jammes was, of course, ecstatic, and fretted over her. "Christine! There you are! Oh, I was worried I wouldn't catch you today. Are you feeling alright? You're looking kinda pale."

Christine heaved a sigh. "Yeah… Just a bit tired, that's all."

Jammes bit her plump lower lip. "Okay. Oh, Christine, do you know Meg Giry?" She pointed at the swarthy girl next to her.

Christine turned to face Meg. "Meg Giry? Oh, I've heard about you. Your mom is one of the box-keepers here, right?"

Meg smiled. "Yeah. Honestly, I wouldn't be here without her." She extended her hand. "It's nice to meet you. Christine, right?"

The singer gently shook the offered hand. "Yes. Christine Daaé. It's nice to meet you as well."

"I've heard about your father. He- he was your father, right? I'm terribly sorry."

Christine pursed her lips and nodded. "Yes, he was my father. It's okay, really. Thank you."

Jammes tuned in. "How did the chorus rehearsal go? Was Gabriel very mad? He is antsier than usual these days."

"What? No. No, he wasn't mad." Christine shrugged. "He berated us a few times, but it went alright." She suddenly noticed that she had a feeling of being watched. She turned around, but caught nobody's gaze.

"...Girls, I'm sorry, but I really should be going. I… Mamma is expecting me back."

* * *

Her route was different now. Instead of heading to the hospital by subway, she only had to ride several stops on a bus to get to her apartment building on the _Rue Notres-Dames-des-Victoires._ On her ride home, Christine promised herself to fervently practice her part, but when she opened the door to her apartment, she felt so exhausted that she couldn't even think of practicing anything.

Mamma rushed over to her and pulled her into a warm embrace, took her coat and led her to the kitchen, asking questions about her first day back. Christine gave simple answers, saying that everything had gone well. Of course, she omitted the fact how badly her voice had suffered during her leave. Poor old Mamma didn't need any more worries.

And that antsy feeling of being watched has never gone away, no matter how much Christine looked back while walking through the streets. "I must be going mad," she thought, as she drew the curtains on her bedroom's windows close - something she'd rarely done before.

And eventually, the feeling of unease was subdued as she binge-watched some walkthrough series of YouTube with a pot of ice-cream in her lap.


End file.
